Flynn-Eugene
by XXCaptainUsoppXX
Summary: A series of drabbles about Flynn Rider, Corona's greatest thief.
1. Best Friends

**I roleplay Flynn for an RP group on tumblr (flynn-eugene dot tumblr dot com) and every week our group has a different prompt to write a drabble about our character for a certain theme. These are my drabbles, mostly filled with my headcanons and backstory for Flynn.**

**The group is a Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons group (a Rise of the Guardians/Brave/Tangled/How to Train Your Dragon crossover) but these drabbles are very Flynn-centric and you can easily read them if you've only watched Tangled.**

* * *

The tower looked like something out of a fairytale. In fact, it looked like something out of The Adventures of Flynnigan Rider. It looked like the perfect place to hide.

The satchel bounced against Flynn's side as he raced through the clearing towards the tower. He could almost _feel_ the power of the crown through the cloth. And by power, he meant money. Enemy kingdoms would buy this for three times the fortune he needed to get himself his mansion. No more alliances with ruffians like the Stabbington brothers. He could live the life of a rich man.

When he reached the tower, he walked around its base a few times before deciding there was, in fact, no door hidden beneath the thick carpet of ivy that crawled up the high stone walls. There was, however, an open window high, high up at the top of the tower. He grabbed a couple of the arrows the kingdom's guards had so graciously lent him and tested them, stabbing them into the crumbling cracks in the stone.

He'd climb up there Flynnigan Rider-style.

As it turned out, Flynnigan Rider-style was exhausting, and Flynn nearly collapsed when he finally crawled through the window. He didn't even bother to look around the room; if he had, he might have realized the place was more inhabited then he'd thought.

Instead, the back of Flynn's head was introduced to a frying pan.

When Flynn woke up, head throbbing, tied to a chair by a length of thick blonde… hair? Yes, thick blonde hair, the last thing he'd been thinking of was friendship.

Friendship was also the last thing he was thinking of when he tried to sweet-talk his way out of the psychotic blonde girl's tower. It was even the last thing on his mind when he agreed to be her guide to the dumb _lights_, of all things.

In fact, Flynn wasn't really sure when friendship _had_ become the first thing on his mind when he thought of Rapunzel.

All he knew was that now it was.**  
**


	2. Greatest Fears

**An alternate ending to the movie...**

* * *

Flynn had always feared death. He had never feared injury or capture or betrayal; he'd survived them all before, countless times before. But death was cold, and final, and cowardly. Great men, great heroes, great thieves never died. Flynn hadn't spent a lifetime of fighting his way through the world tooth and nail to lose everything to death.

He'd heard stories, of course, of castles in the sky, great kingdoms that awaited the dead. He believed none of these stories. If men fought for wealth in the world, it was because it was the only wealth they'd ever have. He believed in himself and in himself alone. And he feared the only thing that could take him from himself.

He feared death until the day he died.

* * *

Gothel's knife tore into his flesh. Pain radiated through his body and he fell heavily. He'd been stabbed before, but not like this. He knew before he hit the ground that he wouldn't survive.

He watched in horror, eyes blurred by pain, as Rapunzel fought and screamed against Gothel's chains. He tried to reach for her, touch her, _save her_, but he couldn't move.

"I will fight you. Every day of my life, I will fight you." Her words sent relief rushing over him. She was strong. She would fight. She would survive. Of everything there was to believe in, he believed in her.

"But." Her voice was calm and cold. "If you let me save him, I'll go with you."

"No, Rapunzel!" He forced the words past his shaking lips, reached for her desperately. In this moment, he feared not for his own life. He feared only for her.

"Just let me heal him," Rapunzel begged.

"No!"

Gothel's eyes narrowed. Silence pounded through the tower. Flynn's hands were sticky with blood.

"Fine."

"No!"

Gothel undid Rapunzel's chains and chained Flynn instead. Never had he feared capture more. Never had he feared death less.

"Eugene!" Rapunzel was breathless, _smiling_. "Trust me. Just breathe."

"I can't let you do this," he whispered. It hurt to breathe.

It hurt to see her face.

"And I can't let you die," she said. She touched him, gently. So tenderly, so lovingly. No one had ever been this to him.

He couldn't let her die, couldn't let her wither away with that hag. She deserved every castle he could have ever had, every jewel he had ever stolen, every kiss he had ever given to someone he didn't love.

He reached for the broken glass. He would die, and she would live, and he would never have to fear again.

"Rapunzel, wait." He moved to kiss her lips.

She saw his hand. She understood.

"Eugene, no!" She knocked his hand aside. The glass went flying. Gothel's eyes widened in horror.

Her hair remained long and golden.

She sang, quickly, before Gothel could pull her away. She sang, and her hair glowed, and the pain of Flynn's wound faded.

"Rapunzel!" he screamed, but Gothel was already pulling her away, yanking her violently down the stairs.

"Eugene! I love you!" she called.

And she was gone.

He touched his side. His shirt remained bloody, but the wound was healed. Not even a scar to remember it by.

He would live, and she would die, and he would never stop fearing the death of those he loved.


	3. A Year Before

Dear Past Flynn,

I was going to say: "Don't steal the crown. It's not worth it." I mean, stealing the damn thing nearly killed me. (Actually, it did.) I never did get any money for it. And it almost killed the person who matters most to me.

But then I got to thinking. If I hadn't gotten into the whole crown-stealing mess in the first place (and just a word of warning: don't strike up a partnership when you're drunk, you make even stupider choices than usual) then I never would have met the person who matters most to me.

I never would have stumbled by that tower. I never would have seen the day that my smoulder failed. I never would have been healed by magic hair or learned how great frying pans are. Start practising now, by the way, you'll need to fight a horse with a frying pan soon. And speaking of the horse, without the crown I never would have met the first animal I actually kind of like. (Don't tell Max I said that.) Without the crown, I never would have ridden in boat with a beautiful girl and watched her watch the lights. I might have gotten captured and nearly executed by the palace guards, but I wouldn't have had such a good reason to get away. I never would have been called Eugene again. I never would have remembered that Flynn is just a mask.

So go ahead. Steal the crown. It's worth it.

Signed, Future Eugene

P.S. They still haven't gotten our nose right.**  
**


	4. Parental Guidance

"And so Flynnigan Rider rode into the sunset, carrying the princess to safety."

Maude snapped the worn leather book shut as she read the last line of the story. The children who'd been listening to her began to wander off, in pairs or alone, chattering and laughing. Eugene Fitzherbert stayed seated, though, on the floor in front of the old rocking chair where Maude sat.

"Read it again?" he asked, looking up at the older girl with rapt attention. Maude was a broad-shouldered girl in plain clothes, with brown hair always tied in braids and big doey eyes that looked too old for her fourteen years. Eugene wasn't sure when she'd stopped being just another kid in the orphanage and had become the mother-figure all the children craved. She gave the kids the love that the cold Sisters who ran the orphanage never did.

Maude sighed tiredly and ran a hand over her hair. "You're almost eleven, Eugene, you shouldn't need me to read to you." She tossed him the book and stood up. Two toddlers were fighting over a bottle at the other end of the room and Maude rushed over to dry their tears.

Eugene picked up he book that Maude had tossed him. The cover was soft, worn leather. The title was stamped into the front. _The Adventures of Flynnigan Rider_,he knew it read. One of the very few books in the orphanage, and probably the only one that didn't have pages ripped out. The book Eugene would never in a hundred years get tired of hearing.

He lay down on his stomach and spread the pages open. He admired an inked drawing of Flynnigan, scaling up the side of a princess's tower, his handsome face in profile. Eugene ran a finger along the line of Flynnigan's majestic nose. Someday. Someday he'd be a handsome hero like Flynnigan.

His eyes drifted to the words on the other page. Little black letters that marched across the yellowed page in neat lines. Little black letters that meant nothing to Eugene. Maude knew he couldn't read. He looked over his shoulder to scowl at her, but she had one toddler on her hip, another yanking on her skirt, and three other kids shouting at her from the hallway. He looked back at the book. There were too many kids in the orphanage and not enough Sisters to even begin to teach the kids anything other than how to behave. (And the Sisters enjoyed nothing more than beating that lesson into noisy, nosy kids like Eugene.) The only kids who knew anything were the ones who, like Maude, had already been old enough and smart enough to read when they'd arrived at the orphanage. Not Eugene. He'd been a baby, smaller than the toddler balanced on Maude's hip, when he'd been dropped on the doorstep of this God-forsaken place.

Eugene flipped a few pages back in the book, to the page with the drawing of a young Flynnigan, receiving his first sword from his wise and noble father before setting out to make a name for himself. Flynnigan's mother stood in the background, wiping away a tear as she watched her son prepare to leave. Eugene slammed the book shut. It didn't matter. When he was rich and magnificent like Flynnigan, it wouldn't matter where he'd come from.

"Fitzherbert!" Sister Margaret stormed into the room, black robes swishing along with her sharp footsteps. She grabbed Eugene by the arm and yanked him to his feet, her face red with anger. "You get into the bedroom _right now_ and clean up those _disgusting _sheets you soiled. Filthy child!"

The three kids who Maude was herding down the hallway snickered. Eugene could hear them sneering and whispering, "Eugene pissed in bed again!"

"I didn't!" Eugene shouted, face red.

"Lying is a sin, child!" Sister Margaret screamed. Her hand hit the side of Eugene's face with a sharp slap that made his eyes water. She pushed him towards to door harshly. "Clean it up! And if you keep soiling the bed, you'll be sleeping outside like the animal you are!"

Eugene stumbled down the hall and towards the bedrooms, head down. The kids in the hall snickered and shoved him. He pushed open the door to the room he shared with the other ten- and eleven-year-old boys, feeling sick. A hand came down on his shoulder and he flinched. When he looked up, though, it was into Maude's face.

"I'm sorry," Maude said. She ruffled his dark hair. There wasn't much more she could say. She handed him the Flynnigan Rider book, which she must have picked up from the floor of the common room. He took it from her and smiled a little.

"Thanks, Maude."

Maude's smile was tired and sad. She kissed the top of Eugene's head. "You'll make a great hero someday, Eugene," she whispered. Then the sound of tears erupted from the room next door and Maude hurried away.

Eugene watched her go, then slunk into his room to clean his sheets. He'd be sad to leave her when he departed to make a name for himself. Maybe she'd even shed a tear for him when he left. He hugged the book to his chest and let himself imagine it.**  
**


	5. Lucky Charm

Eugene stood before the towering stone building, with its coat of crawling ivy and its crumbling old walls. The building, sinister in the half-light of the moon, seemed to sag, reaching towards Eugene, reaching out to swallow him up, to devour him with its teeth of stone.

Except he wasn't going to be eaten by the monster. He'd just escaped it. After a childhood spent suffocating in the prison that was _Miss Imogene's Home For Unwanted Children_, Eugene had finally seen enough to give him the courage to leave. His ribs were still aching, probably cracked, from his freshest beating from the older boys. His left eye was swollen shut because of Sister Helena's hand before that. And his heart was still raw and bleeding from watching Maude wither away in the past weeks, the plague sucking the life out of her until her last breath escaped her the night before.

Eugene clutched the heavy, worn book to his chest. His only worldly possession other than the patched-up clothes on his back and the bit of wire he'd used to pick the lock of the orphanage's front door—a skill he'd fought tooth and nail to be allowed to learn from one of the older, nastier boys. A skill he figured would be useful in his future as a great hero. He could just imagine it, sneaking into the fortress of a terrible bad guy, saving the princess locked inside.

Eugene gave his prison of thirteen years one last look, whispered one last goodbye to Maude, then turned and scaled the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the orphanage. Once his feet hit the dusty dirt road he took off running. Running out into the world to make a name for himself.

* * *

Lock-picking turned out to be an even more invaluable skill than Eugene had expected. Because even the greatest hero had to eat, and a child who'd grown up within the walls of an orphanage didn't have the knowledge to hunt and gather his own food. As Eugene picked the lock of a larger house in this town of cobble-stone streets and sun-splashed flags, he told himself he was being heroic. He imagined the family inside as horrible monsters, people with ugly scarred faces and hands like claws who'd eaten the house's original inhabitants alive and who were sitting on thrones made of their bones, fat and happy, stuffing their dirty faces. He was doing the world a favour by stealing from these people.

The door swung open with a faint click. Eugene stuck his head into the room beyond. A small fire crackled in the hearth, but the room seemed empty. Quietly, his feet bare and his steps as light as he could manage, Eugene slipped into the room and over to the ice box sitting against the rear wall. He was starving. He'd spent three nights running through the woods away from the orphanage. He'd crossed a stream once and had drunk hungrily. When his stomach had begun to feel so hollow it ached, he'd tried to eat leaves and grass, but those had only made him feel sick. When he'd finally reached this town, huge and wondrous to his eyes that had only ever seen the isolated orphanage, he'd been nearly hallucinating from hunger and thirst. Night had fallen, and he'd found this house.

Eugene's hands fell on the wooden side of the ice box and he wrenched it open with shaking arms. His eyes drank in the sight of all the food inside. Meat, butter, dark green vegetables and bright red fruits. He began to stuff his face blindly, inhaling the sweet food. He was too starved, too focused on his meal to hear the footsteps coming up behind him. He didn't notice the presence in the room until a hand grabbed him by the collar and yanked him to his feet. Eugene yelped, coughing up half-chewed food.

"Get your hands out of my food, dirty thief!" shouted the burly, angry man. A thick fist punched Eugene squarely in the face, making white-hot pain explode in his half-healed black eye. He went flying, sprawling across the stone floor of the room.

"I'm sorry," Eugene whimpered.

The man didn't seem to hear. He leaned down and scooped up the book Eugene had dropped to the floor in his haste to satisfy his hollow stomach. Eugene's good eye widened in terror as the man held _The Adventures of Flynnigan Rider_ between his thumb and forefinger.

"And what's this?" the man asked.

"Please," Eugene gasped, crawling towards the man. "Give it back."

The man kicked Eugene in the side, knocking the air out of him and sending him sprawling to the floor again.

"Who'd you steal this from, street urchin?"

"No one," Eugene swore. Tears stung his eyes. "Please."

"I don't think so," the man said. "Filthy thieves don't deserve nice things."

Eugene watched in paralysed horror as the man tossed the book into the crackling fireplace. The pages blackened and crumbled before Eugene's eyes.

"No!" Eugene screamed. He scrambled towards the fireplace, trying to grab at the book through the flames. The man's hand came down on his collar again, though, and yanked him up.

"Get out of here, kid," the man growled. He tossed Eugene out the door and slammed it in his face. Eugene sat on the cobbled street in front of the house, tears and snot and blood dribbling down his face.

He decided then that he would never let an object, a silly thing, _a book he couldn't even read_, matter so much to him.

He would never let anything matter so much to him, because everything that mattered was stolen from him anyways.**  
**


	6. One Word

"_Thief!"_

"_Dirty thief!"_

"_Get back here, thief!"_

"_Help! Thief! Help!"_

Thief had become the boy's name. He'd shed the name Eugene Fitzherbert a long time ago, when he was thirteen and scared, sitting in the dark on a cobble-stone street while his book burned and his dream crumbled.

Three years later—sixteen, no longer a skinny, scrawny kid but a young man made of muscles from running and climbing and escaping—he sat on the edge of the roof of a low building, swinging his legs and watching the people bustling around the streets at his feet.

"Hey, kid!"

He looked down. A big guy, with a scar instead of an eye and thick hairy arms, stood below him, looking up at him with a scowl.

"Yeah?" he called down, still swinging his booted feet. He'd stolen the boots a couple months ago from a cobbler with a mean look in his eyes and a fat wallet. They were nice boots, all leather and buckles and heroism.

"What's your name?" the man called up.

"Thief," he answered with a snicker. Because that was the only name he answered to anymore, and because he wanted to see the look on the man's face.

The man looked unimpressed.

"Is that so?" he said. "Get your ass down here, thief."

"Why should I do that?"

"Because I have a proposition for a thief like you."

"What kind of proposition?"

"Get down and find out," the man growled, sounding impatient.

He hesitated, kicked his booted feet a few more times. He didn't have much to lose. And he was fast—he could run from the man if he had to. He jumped down, landing on the dusty street in a crouch.

"C'mon," the man said, heading for the shadier part of a town a few side streets over. The boy who was nothing but a thief followed.

* * *

The man led him into the den of the city's biggest thief guild. He had to give them his name if he wanted to join, they said. Thief wasn't good enough. They were all thieves here.

On a whim, he said Flynn. Flynn Rider.

He left the guild a year later. The guild was almost as much of a prison as the orphanage had been. And besides, he made more on his own.

He left town to get away from them. The name Flynn Rider stuck, though. He made a name for himself in one town, then the next. When he found his way back to the city of cobbled streets and sun-splashed flags a few years later, the city where he'd first stopped being Eugene Fitzherbert, a city called Corona, Flynn Rider had become famous.

He still answered to the name Thief, though.

Sometimes he remembered his namesake. He remembered his dream of heroism, his dream of saving princesses and capturing thieves. He laughed at the irony now. Flynnigan Rider was a hero. Flynn Rider was a villain.

He told himself he'd give up his life of thievery when he'd amassed the fortune of his dreams, when he was alone and safe in a castle all his own, in the first place he'd be able to call a home and not a prison.

But when he wasn't lying to himself, he knew he'd always be a thief. Flynn Rider was a disguise, a twisted version of a childhood dream. Eugene Fitzherbert was his past.

Thief was the only thing he truly was.


End file.
